He said with flushed cheeks

And cold eyes,

“Look at her,

Look at her anger..”

The hair grew course and straight

On the back of my neck.

And my nail beds wore sore

From hiding.

Those claws that lie dormant

Favor boiling veins.

She did not know-

It would be one of her own

But her fangs always knew

What her heart could not feign.

An old lion might hope

That I don’t remember;

Highway stops

And broken shoulders.

The crashing of windshields

And pipe dreams.

Diplomats in arm slings.

The echo of footsteps

But most of all

The smell of burnt tires,

The smoke from the chase-

The unfinished race to a better you.

The acid in my stomach shot those lies

And oiled my tongue.

I was ready

To sharpen

The biology that you gave me.

I scratched the surface

With the claws that found me.

If I knew better

If I have learned anything from you

I know to dig deeper-

To sink down

To the marrow,

Make a feast of your bones.

Because when you get brittle

I’ll fill you with bacteria

Infect you with hope.

And hug you in pretty.

#weareweeat #wearewhatwereap #freeverse #poetry

The final drops of courage

Evaporate from the bottom of the glass.

Calculating a short walk

And an uncomfortable drive

Can I make it home?

It’s throbbing.

But I smile my way through

And wrap my feet tightly around each other.

Soon my inner thighs tire-

it’s too much.

I stammer to find my legs

My awkward feet and bowed legs of a younger me

Expose themselves in full

I take a wide turn pass the corner of the bar

Bumping into laughs,

And syrupy strangers.

Darting the stares

And chasing crowded corners

I’m looking for relief from-

My body,

My mind,

My biology.

Small bladders prove shallow

And cleaner

Than my dive bar gene pool.

No, I was looking for relief from It.

The sense of absolute,

and infinite doubt.

The slow crash of failure

The quiet abandonment

Of a previous self.

The kind that shows up in a room

thick with people,

sweating through superfluous questions.

The clinched jaws and concrete postures-

Trying to navigate through

some sort of

grand human interview.

It’s the kind that you watch

As your mother curls her body away

And takes refuge in a sea of blankets

The eyes that shut when you ask what’s for breakfast,

The cold stare of loss.

That simply warm into a muddy life

Of desperate decisions.

It found a home in her mother too.

Even before the poison got her lungs.

I would see her-

Standing in kitchens,

And doorways,

And parking lots.

Dizzy by fear

Tossing the intestines of a purse

on bank floors

Just to feel the smoke rise in her chest one last time.

This was theirs

And now it is mine too.

It is as much me

As the dark eyes they gave me

As the slight dip in our backs

The flat feet

And small hands.

Is it as much me

As the late night sermons

And early morning tears

The empty dinner tables

And frozen peas.

It is as much me

As the nerves that directed me on this journey to rusted porcelain

To catch a glimpse of closure-

From my insides.

But when did it happen?

I used to be the girl so carelessly

And recklessly

Sure.

Committed just as much to her own rise

As she was to her own fall.

I used to be the girl that skipped across, broken railroad tracks

Above the Tennessee river.

Blindfolded by a gut full of ignorance

And faith in the lie.

Now,

I’m so far from that river

And the fog of that summer.

I’m here.

Stuck in the prints of old boots

On a snowy December night.

In a new sleepy town

Straightened legs,

But old worry.

The bar creatures won’t know

If I dropped my pants outside.

They’re half soaked on whiskey,

Drunk on screens-

Swallowing their own mother’s worry.

How would I be different?

But before I could ask

Or take the cold plunge

The bartender looks

And tells me without speaking,

shoulders aligned,

“The last door on your left”

#broughttoyoubywhiskey #baranxiety #freeverse

I didn’t think,

I didn’t think this would,

I didn’t think this would happen.

There was the salt we tasted,

The land that gave us,

The cobblestones

And the loose rocks that chased us.

But nothing felt like the fingerprints

in that pillow.

The hand I traced

After you fell asleep.

I moved my head from edge to edge

Feeling the parts that could of bled

That should of-

That I secretly wanted to.

Instead, I saw nothing but

blurry and forgotten Christmas lights.

Fixated on pixels

I tried to forget;

the screams,

the porcelain hugs,

the lost luggage,

the concrete kisses.

Why?

The questions about my wrist.

A heavy watch I’d say.

I never thought I would be that woman.

My bones were guilty.

My blood felt the same.

But WHY?

I thought.

On thoughts.

And

On thoughts.

Wrists begone

And pillow fingerprints beside

But heavy eyes let you touch me.

Even after the war.

You made me hold your crown and comfort your pride.

You needed it.

You had to hold your pawn.

And there I was

textured breath

And cold tiled cries.

You could scare me.

You could touch me.

But nothing will compare

To the spoon you made me eat.

Black and blue breath.

And the bowl that made me weep.

#findingmyvoiceagain #dontbethatgirl #freeverse

An uninspired writer, 

and a dry winter night.

A house that looks as dull

as its insides.

Window frames without color, 

rugs without pine needles,

kitchens without Christmas cookies.

Just a scrooge of a girl 

and another empty glass. 

And there’s a blinking cursor,

that seems to grow larger

with every empty second.

It scrolls across the screen 

in invisible ink-

“Fucking write!”

But instead she stares 

and she stares

and she stares.

And when she is almost cross eyed

she closes her lids and listens.

Behind her in bed-

rustling sheets

and a whistling nose. 

The product of plastered toasts 

and trivial conversation. 

Lustless weekends lost. 

But he’s still there,

relentlessly loving,

committed to a shared bed

And overpriced espresso makers.

But she could choke on lattes

and morning kisses.

She needs the roars

and the aches

and the minutes that feel like hours.

And maybe then,

maybe,

this screen will fill itself again. 

#writerinneed #inspirationdeprivation #SOS 

I had a dream the other night. It started like the same dream I've had so many nights before. Taken by the water. Lost and alone. Drowning. But this time it was different. I wasn't fighting. I wasn't trying to swim to the surface. No, I was watching life from beneath it all. I could feel the tides try to take me. I could see the faces searching for me. I could see him try to rescue me. But I stayed there on that cold dark floor. I felt like this is all I knew. That I would always be alone watching the tides try to chase me. 

Covering my ears when people try to tell me I'm not alone.

You're wrong. This cold earth was my friend. And this view of the world from beneath life was the only thing I needed to breathe.

I don't want you to be

the father, son and Holy Ghost.

But everyday you try

a small Savior. 

And I'm searching for the title

engraved,

in somebody else's plan.

How can you be somebody else's 

when the else doesn't know the else she needs?

Does she need a friend,

a lover,

a fighter,

a blood,

a son?

Calculating the tears,

Questioning your role-

Were you on the losing side,

this time?

Blanket sighs,

shoes thrown,

she can't even answer.

You are what you are.

Maybe that's enough.

You're the million and

the one.

You're the it she can't explain,

You're the mind she loses,

You're the glass that breaks,

You're the question,

And the pause.

You're the language of her pain

When will you be the period?

A stop.

A sign.

An end to a chapter

in her achy, breaky life.

Or are you the question mark?

A mind.

A cage she fights.

A thought she can't

hold onto.

The doubts.

The gray.

The matter.

Then,

Lips turn,

Mouth shakes,

Toothy face.

Stops.

Air in,

And out.

Life is a fucking ellipses...

period.

I'm sitting here at this long table, 

Empty seats,

Muddy conversation-

Reminds me of my heart.

How do I repair?

So I'm here.

Self hating,

Looking for your face in every face.

I can't find you-

Anywhere.

When I put my feet on the ground

I know they will take me to you.

I just don't know if I'm following 

the footprints of a ghost.

Chasing after something that I already buried.

But I'm looking anyways.

I'm burning my own tracks.

And praying I find a welcome mat.

And Not a locked door.

Sitting on a cold barrel,

Between a bike,

And last night's waste-

Asphalt as far as the I can see.

I'm at it again.

Another morning of pleasantries,

And plastered smiles.

If the sky could just give me a line,

One with weight,

Then maybe I could make it.

But the bells are ringing,

Somebody needs their medicine.

And I'm just looking to pay for mine.

It's a senseless cycle,

Consumed by the musty mundane.

..Check please.

#serverlife #humandoormat #lifebloods 

I'm there in your apartment,

The one I've been sketching for the past few years.

I'm supposed to catch the red eye tonight,

But I can't.

I want to stay in this cold strange city

Till the sun kicks me out.

I wanna stay

For morning breath,

And bright shoulders,

And leggy sheets.

I wanna stay for

All the mornings

That I missed.

Staying won't be easy.

The four corners,

The brassy knob of freedom,

Will always tempt me,

But staying will be easier

Because I have you.

#lovelost #chicagoways #chicagodays

What has writing meant to me? 

I have always found a refuge in words. The simple act of putting pen to paper, and now fingertips to iPhone, has given me great solace throughout my life. As a child when I would get into trouble, screams and slammed doors would muddle my voice. I constantly felt misunderstood. And although volume was never an issue, substance and constructive communication were. I found a voice in writing. My mom has since collected the countless letters that I taped on her door. We laugh about it now, but there is no doubt that my love of words was born between those four yellow walls. Unfortunately, I lost that connection throughout academia. At one point in college, I was writing forty pages worth of papers a week. Thesis' and arguments were something I could form in my sleep. It all became stale and meaningless. Professors would criticize my quiet boycott of institutionalized word vomit. And I would be left discouraged and frustrated. An advisor once told me that I wrote with more color than any other student he had ever met. I remember exactly how that compliment had buzzed my ears and the tops of my cheeks. I I also remember more poignantly, I might add, the profound sadness that followed after he proceeded to tell me that's not what we're looking for. Regardless of the conflicting feedback, I lost my way from my heart, my words and my story. It took a messy break up, and a return to the cuckoo's nest to find it again. And a little over a year ago, I found myself joining an online writing course and sharing my work publicly for the very first time. And today, I can say without any hesitation that I want to be a writer. I want to write poems and books in hopes that if even one person can feel my words or relate to my story then I have succeeded far more than I could have ever imagined.

Words are mine. What is yours? Don't ever cage your spirit. For all that I know is that a soul cannot be contained.  

#writersepiphany #revelations #wordbirds